this post was submitted on 21 Jan 2024
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  • Developers of Cities: Skylines 2 have noticed a growing toxicity in their community, which is affecting engagement and creativity.
  • The CEO of Colossal Order expressed concern about the negative impact of toxicity on the team and the community.
  • The developers still encourage helpful criticism from the community but ask for it to be constructive and kind.

Archive link: https://archive.ph/mVaIY

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[–] Cypher@lemmy.world 97 points 9 months ago (5 children)

Such a toxic community! I popped over to reddit and saw posts like this

https://old.reddit.com/r/CitiesSkylines2/comments/19bq6q3/keep_running_into_a_bug_that_destroys_my_tax/kitiiqn/

This bug was introduced with the last Patch last year before they went for christmas/new year holidays. They are back since 1 week now and i think and hope they patch it as soon as possible . To be fair its only a Problem early till midgame before you got youre economy half way working, after this point you dont have money Problems at all . I find the ai pathfinding + the cargo System more gamebreaking then the money bug

On steam checking new reviews shows people are unhappy and refunding but there’s hardly any vitriol there either. Moderators are quick but not that quick.

Over on the official forums we see complaints, disappointment and frustration but little in the way of outright hatred.

I’ve yet to run across anything that crosses a line in terms of content I would moderate, however that doesn’t mean moderators didn’t nuke such comments before I could see them.

This looks like the expected reaction to a game being broken on release. The devs are simply shifting blame to the community.

[–] echo64@lemmy.world 39 points 9 months ago (1 children)

This is a good time to introduce survivorship bias. You are looking at what is still there. Not what has been removed, burried or was done via dms/non public comms.

Or maybe you are right and they are just making up the toxicity remarks.

[–] Cypher@lemmy.world 35 points 9 months ago

however that doesn’t mean moderators didn’t nuke such comments before I could see them.

Im well aware of survivorship bias and even addressed it in my comment.

It isn’t the first time devs have shifted blame for their failures to their customers.

[–] SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca 7 points 9 months ago

Seems more like the managers are shifting blame to both the devs and the community. The people who planned out the development timeline and didn't provide an adequate amount of time for QA and bugfixes before release are the ones ultimately responsible.

So now they're telling the paying customers to "stop being toxic to our devs" instead of taking responsibility for their decisions.

[–] lamabop@lemmings.world 7 points 9 months ago

"We released a garbage unfinished game that didn't run properly and wasn't that good, but it's the players fault."

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[–] echo64@lemmy.world 77 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (29 children)

The comments in here are really disappointing and a reflection of where this community has gone in general.

Excusing toxic gamer communities, accusing the developer of things for pointing it out? All because the game not in a good state is toxic in itself and really not what this community should be.

This place gets worse every week.

[–] Rentlar@lemmy.ca 42 points 9 months ago (7 children)

Sorry, I'm having trouble understanding what kind of commentary you were expecting.

Leading up to release as soon as the first reviews pointed out bad performance (see thread), many on Lemmy were bashing CO/Paradox for putting out a beta-stage product as if it was fully released, and Lemmings and people at large were never real fans of being unpaid QA testers for game companies.

Mind you, I love this game, and there's a lot in there that I can tell CO devs put their heart and soul in. But I see a comment or a post every now and then saying "Lemmy is becoming so toxic, like Reddit" [1] [2] [3] [4] and I'm trying to figure out what exactly has changed, if you can help me out here.

[–] Carighan@lemmy.world 13 points 9 months ago (2 children)

None of that excuses being toxic around the game though.

At most, it excuses just refunding it. And then never interacting with it or the community around it ever again.

[–] Rentlar@lemmy.ca 8 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (9 children)

I absolutely agree. There's a line between constructive criticism/feedback and toxicity, some cases are obvious but others I don't know where exactly to draw it. Those that aren't interested in the game after being let down may be best advised to refund and move on with their life.

Unfortunately, I don't know where to strike a good balance to avoid both an "echo chamber where any dissent is extinguished', and a 'cesspool of toxic jerks talking ironically'.

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[–] APassenger@lemmy.world 11 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (3 children)

I've played CS2 for weeks. Days of hours. Have completely enjoyed it.

It's not finished and they're honest about that. Also, comparisons to CS in it's finished state (easy to do unconsciously) overlook just how many DLCs it took to get to full maturity.

I enjoy the game and have no regrets for buying. I don't feel deceived since I could have asked for as refund.

I think some of this is a specific kind of FOMO. Fear of missing out (on what could have been). I'm hoping they do enough to fix the parenthetical.

Edit to add: my computer has great specs for late 2020. It's not top of the line, but it has everything I thought it would need, CPU, RAM, GPU. That may impact my experience.

The game was unplayable on my 5 year old laptop. But it's not really a gaming rig anyhow...

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[–] Old_Dude@lemmy.world 10 points 9 months ago

Its the internet though. I don't know of a place on the internet where there's no toxicity.

[–] Boiglenoight@lemmy.world 7 points 9 months ago

It’s becoming Reddit. Which is what we wanted last year? I know what you mean though. There is a difference between now and then with our community. Probably related to user count?

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[–] wooki@lemmynsfw.com 71 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (4 children)

This is the very definition of gas lighting.

Customers: “This is not what I paid for”

Colossal Order: “You’re so toxic”

[–] bionicjoey@lemmy.ca 21 points 9 months ago

Players: "your game doesn't work. It's riddled with bugs. It has serious performance issues and doesn't run on most hardware. It lacks modding support as well as basic features that were present in the previous game"

Devs:

[–] Shiggles@sh.itjust.works 11 points 9 months ago

If there’s one thing to take from this, it’s that the toxicity just needs to be directed at those actually responsible. Not the devs, but at corporate forcing the game to release early.

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[–] CorrodedCranium@leminal.space 60 points 9 months ago (4 children)

I'm surprised they didn't see this coming. A lot of people had high expectations because of the impact the first game had and if it wasn't better in every way there was bound to be some negative feedback.

[–] Candelestine@lemmy.world 59 points 9 months ago (3 children)

They're not complaining about negative feedback, are they? They're complaining about the internet hate machine, which we should be mature enough here to admit is a bunch of juvenile, masturbatory bullshit from people that want to feel good about themselves without doing anything to actually earn that, and so just shit mercilessly in every way on anything they don't like, because bullying others is a quick and easy way to feel strong for a brief time.

That's more than mere negative criticism.

[–] CorrodedCranium@leminal.space 7 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (9 children)

Isn't that just a more extreme version of negative feedback?

The post the article is talking about does mention toxicity in the community and hints at it being directed at the devs but how much of that is people debating and talking about gripes they have with the game versus crude personal attacks?

All I was saying is this game received a lot of attention and hype so I felt like this was kind of an inevitably. They were never going to please everyone.

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[–] cryptiod137@lemmy.world 22 points 9 months ago (2 children)

There was no way the game was going to be better in every way, the previous game was being worked on for the better part of a decade.

[–] MrNesser@lemmy.world 20 points 9 months ago

I think people expected a CS2 with at least some of the cS1 dlc as standard (at least parks) instead we got a base game and then told there wouldn't be a mod loader and we couldn't use the steam library. That's effectively nuked the ability for the community to "fix" the game.

[–] scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 15 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Yeah I think expectations are too high, where people expected a perfect game like cities skylines forgetting that when it launched it was also a very rocky start.

Gamers in general are just very entitled, and very unforgiving

[–] CorrodedCranium@leminal.space 12 points 9 months ago (3 children)

Gamers in general are just very entitled, and very unforgiving

Didn't the sequel have some pretty large problems on launch?

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[–] miseducator@lemmy.world 58 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Toxicity in our cities, in our Cities (Skylines 2 community)

[–] Namstel@lemmy.one 19 points 9 months ago (1 children)

You, what do you own the world? How do you own disorder, disorder?

[–] Dalvoron@lemm.ee 11 points 9 months ago

*how do you own colossal order, colossal order

[–] trackcharlie@lemmynsfw.com 55 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (12 children)

Have they considered the likelihood of the increased toxicity being due to their business model and product performance?

No?

I didn't think so.

[–] Carighan@lemmy.world 44 points 9 months ago (5 children)

That is entirely not an excuse to be an arsehole to someone you don't even know and for all you do could be your own sibling. The point exactly, btw.

It's how toxic people "justify" their own toxicity so they don't have to realize they're the asshole.

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[–] doctorcrimson 10 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (5 children)

I'm with you, that studio brought the Sims sales model into the new era. The only people who actually play all their content are either wealthy losers or pirates. Nothing is more unwelcoming than a small closed off community.

[–] snek@lemmy.world 12 points 9 months ago (2 children)

I'm proud to say the whole family were big on Sims 2-4 and we pirated every single version and all expansion packs as children. It was a gateway drug to more pirating in the future. Those are the real, open, and welcoming community.

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[–] umbrella@lemmy.ml 44 points 9 months ago (3 children)

well yeah, they are trying to sell a game that looks straight up unfinished, like it was a masterpiece.

entitled much? did they expect praise?

[–] BB69@lemmy.world 55 points 9 months ago (2 children)

The statement still asks for criticism but asks for it to be polite.

You can say something is bad without sounding like an asshole.

[–] Cypher@lemmy.world 16 points 9 months ago (16 children)

People don’t tend to be polite when they buy a dodgy product of any kind, why would video games be different?

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[–] Rentlar@lemmy.ca 40 points 9 months ago (1 children)

"In the long run, this will really hurt not only the mood and the happiness of community members but also discourage creativity and modding, something we would be very sad to see."

jkjk I know it's coming and I love Cities Skylines 2 even in the state it's in, but people are understandably impatient and upset at waiting for promised features to arrive.

[–] arudesalad@sh.itjust.works 8 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Have they even given a timeframe for when mods will release because I haven't seen them say anything about it since launch, I'm assuming because another team is developing it.

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[–] KingThrillgore@lemmy.ml 17 points 9 months ago (3 children)

At this point, I'm mad they're about to launch the DLC for every damn feature. Everyone should avoid being toxic, but Paradox/Colossal Order aren't blameless here. They shipped the game half-finished, and are gonna screw you out of your money. Just go back to the first Skylines.

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[–] Renacles@lemmy.world 16 points 9 months ago (10 children)

This is happening everywhere in gaming, people could be critical without being complete assholes, it's getting out of hand.

[–] CheeseNoodle@lemmy.world 11 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (3 children)

On one hand people can be jerks, on the other hand there definetaly is a trend of releasing broken games with a 'patch it later' mentality.

Its kind of hard to take a side because people being assholes isn't the solution but remaining civil is just going to encourage the behaviour and we'll get even more broken releases.

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[–] RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 7 points 9 months ago (5 children)

Public gaming is toxic by default. We’re not talking one person playing with their friend group, we’re talking gaming in the wild. Yeah, there’s gonna be exceptions, but the vast majority is mockery, lashing out, trolling, superiority and the like. I’ve disabled in game chats and voice for more than a decade because I’m sick of the BS.

So it’s not “happening” as a change, this is its normal state.

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[–] BigDaddySlim@lemmy.world 16 points 9 months ago (4 children)

Listen the game isn't perfect and did have a rough launch, but they're actively working on fixing and improving it. I've had 8+ hour straight binges of gameplay on it and enjoy it plenty. Is it completely what I hoped for? Not exactly, and the game could use more optimization but I still very much enjoy it, personally. It's more enjoyable to me so far than the first game, especially with the new tools and features they've added.

Toxicity is so dumb with g*mers, just refund and leave an honest review then move on with your lives people, geez.

[–] KeenFlame@feddit.nu 11 points 9 months ago

That's what they are doing... The marketing team cannot handle their game being returned so they call the community toxic. Career suicide imo

[–] morhp@lemmynsfw.com 8 points 9 months ago

I simply can't believe that they released the game in this unfinished state. Early access or a public beta would be understandable, but you just don't release a half-finished product promising to deliver the remaining stuff later.

The Minecraft way where you continually provide upgrades for your game can obviously work, but in that case, the game is cheaper and the upgrades are free. If they were going that route, CS2 should have been a free upgrade of CS1 with all the features of the previous product and nobody would've complained.

If you buy another full product, you expect another full product.

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[–] Fizz@lemmy.nz 16 points 9 months ago (5 children)

Simulation speed grinds to a halt as soon as you slapdown a few high density buildings. You basically have to but endless low density sprawl or your city will grind to a halt. I think the Media team of colossal order deserve the toxicity they are receiving.

[–] ombremad@lemmy.blahaj.zone 24 points 9 months ago (16 children)

Whatever complaint you got about the game, saying that anyone « deserves toxicity » is not the clever take you think it is.

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[–] brlemworld@lemmy.world 8 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I mean yeah, they haven't released it on Mac yet. Boo!

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